Once Upon a Time: Utopia
by LA Knight
Summary: It was a utopia Nuada had made for the woman who was his very heart. A piece of paradise to atone for the shattered mind which would never truly heal. A "Once Upon a Time" variation.


_**Author's Note:**__ so, OceanFire9 asked me once if Dylan was ever just going to, you know, totally and completely lose her mind and be unfixable. Well, that little question wiggled around and around in my brain for like... hours (which, for me, is a really long time for an idea not to get written out) and finally I couldn't take it anymore. I tried working on word prompts for WhenNightmaresWalked, because she's amazing, aaaaand... I couldn't until I got to the word "utopia." And that word spawned a "what-if" one-shot in answer to OceanFire9's question._

_So, no, this isn't canon. It's an alternate ending - what if Dylan lost her mind and Nuada didn't lose the war against the humans. So... yeah. Hope you enjoy. Warning, lots of depressage. Since I could only pick two genres, let me list off the official genres of this ficlet now: Tragedy/romance/angst/drama/fantasy. You've been warned._

_Sincerely,_

_LA Knight_

_PS - this ficlet assumes a few things. A) Nuada and Dylan got married_ before _the events of the movie. Whether they will or not in actual canon remains to be seen. B) this assumes that Nuada and John became very good friends. Like point A, whether they will or not in canon remains to be seen. And C) Wink did in fact die as he does in the movie. Perhaps not in that particular_ way, _but he's dead. This isn't really touched on in text, but for those of you wondering where he is, he's in Troll Heaven now._

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**Utopia  
A "Once Upon a Time" Variation**

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It was a paradise that Nuada had made for the woman who was his very heart, in the middle of a faerie wood. Unicorns slipped and shimmer like moonbeams between the trees, though they didn't come near the palatial estate itself. Robins and bluejays, meadowlarks and goldfinches sang their songs for her; they weren't bothered by mindless screams late in the night or heartbroken weeping as dawn broke.

Crocuses pushed through the earth in bursts of gold and purple and lilies filled the air with their fresh, sweet fragrance - it blanketed the subtle sting of blood that sometimes hung in the air. There were no roses, though the heavy rainbows of blooms would've comforted Dylan. Nuada could not risk roses. Not after what she had done the last time with the thorns. For a moment, all he could see were white roses stained with crimson mortal blood. White skin, so very pale, stained with that same red blood. He shook the memory away.

King Nuada - oh, yes, he was king now; both the mortal and faerie worlds had bowed to that sovereignty and acknowledged his right to wear Bethmoora's crown and be its monarch until he sired an heir or found one, somewhere - King Nuada strode up the soft earthen path lined with the gentle blues of larkspur and Canterbury bell.

His guards marched behind him, careful not to damage or otherwise disturb the flowers. Not after what had happened the last time, when Dylan had screamed and wept over a broken patch of marigolds and been inconsolable for days. Every one of Nuada's footsteps suddenly seemed to take a Herculean effort. The earth was yielding as mortal flesh beneath his black leather boots. The marigolds, he thought, were for someone she loved. Shades...

The Elven healer, Maeve, bowed low to him even as she opened the front door of the sprawling, cottage-like manse. She'd been the head healer of this small, sequestered utopia for the last two years, ever since Crown Prince Nuada had destroyed the human race, saving only a handful of humans - his lady's kin. All but one.

_They_ were not there. They were in the place he had had made for them, to keep them safe for _her_ sake.

This place, this pastoral little meadow and mansion, were for Dylan alone.

"Maeve," the Elf king murmured, inclining his head. The healer fell into step beside them as they moved down the corridor. Nuada's eyes slid over the tapestries and brightly woven wall-hangings that added color to the hallway. "How is she today?"

"She appears lucid, for the most part, Majesty," Maeve said softly. "Yet her memory of the war has slipped from her grasp again. We caught her digging in the garden again early this morning near dawn, yet now she will not let us near. She has asked for you."

"Has she eaten yet?" It was midday, the king thought, but sometimes Dylan did not eat for days at a time, depending on how long her lucidity lasted. And sometimes, when she was fairly lucid if amnesiatic, she would only eat with him.

Maeve shook her head. "Not yet, Sire. A meal waits for both of you in the garden. She has been walking there for most of the morning."

Nuada found Dylan walking in the garden, just as Maeve had said, beneath a stand of cypress trees. The mortal woman wore no shoes. Mud caked her feet. It was spring, and it had rained the night before. Clutched in one muddy hand was a bouquet of ivory snowdrops and the tiny pale jade blooms known as bells-of-Ireland. The hem of her periwinkle blue dress was torn and damp. Her hair hung down her back in a tangle. Yet when she turned her head and found Nuada's face with her silvery blue eyes, the joy that lit Dylan's face threatened to crack his very heart in half.

"Nuada!" She ran to him. He could do nothing else but hold out his arms to her. When she threw herself into his arms and he enfolded her, he felt her bones pressing into him through dress and easily-bruised skin. Tiny particles of earth sprinkled his black velvet sleeve as she clutched the bedraggled nosegay of flowers. "Oh, you're here! You're here. They won't let me leave," she said, frowning. She pulled back to look up at him. "Why won't they let me?" She always asked him that.

His throat ached and his eyes stung from holding back tears. There was none of Dylan's familiar light in those brilliant blue eyes. Something was missing from her gaze. It hurt him, made him despise himself, yet when she remembered and the light returned it always terrified him. At least when her eyes were dull and soft and blue, she didn't hate him. Didn't loathe him nearly as much as he loathed himself.

"It is for your safety, mo duinne," he murmured, and waited to see if she would understand, or at least accept. Waited to see if his words would trigger her memory, or a psychotic episode. It took so little to send her from mostly-lucid to shuddering with madness. In the end, however, she merely nodded. "What's that you have there?" The Elf asked, forcing a smile that felt as if it would crack his face. He cupped the hand holding the flowers.

"For you," she said brightly, like a child presenting a gift. She held up the flowers. The roots were still attached, slender white veins yet gasping for the nurturing darkness of the earth. "Do you like them? I wanted to do something to cheer you up. You've been distracted lately. Sad. Do you like them?"

If he gave into weakness, she wouldn't understand why he was crying, Nuada thought, and it would only distress her, so he forced himself to bear up.

"I love them," he murmured, and took the little bouquet. "Very much." Knowing he could not bear to see that beaming smile for too long without breaking, the king asked, "Have you eaten?" When Dylan shook her head, he suggested oh so casually, "Perhaps we could have lunch." He gestured to a little pavilion draped in airy white canvas a bit nearer to the actual manse.

"Okay." Dylan slipped both arms around one of his, heedless of the dirt. "Let's eat."

As the king had expected, Maeve and another Elven healer were waiting by the pavilion's large white wicker table and two chairs. A large bucket of water sat at Maeve's feet. A bar of soft amber soap set on a cream-colored dish rested in her hands. The other healer, Fiann, held two washrags and two hand-towels. Nuada laid the bouquet of flowers on the edge of the table and rolled up his sleeves. He glanced at Dylan. She stared at the water, head cocked to one side, eyes vacant.

"My lady," Maeve murmured. "If I may-" Dylan jerked back from the Elven healer, eyes narrowed suspiciously. She shook her head. In a gentle, placating voice, Maeve tried again. "Come, now, milady..."

"Give me your hands, Dylan," Nuada said. His lady turned to him. He held out one hand, surprised it didn't tremble. "I'll help you get the mud off."

She blinked. Her brow furrowed. "I can do it."

"Let me," he insisted gently. "Please." After a long moment, Dylan nodded and gave him her hands. Nuada pulled off her wedding ring and set it on the wicker table beside the flowers. He pulled off his own ring, a match to hers, and set it beside the slender band of white gold.

As he carefully and gently washed away the caked-on earth, he found some damage to the delicate appendages. A torn fingernail. Cuts from sharp stones that had gone unnoticed while she dug up the flowers. Dried smears of blood were dark brown beneath the lighter brown of the mud.

When her hands were at last clean, the cuts cleansed and the short, raggedly-bitten nails white and free of earth, Nuada insisted on washing the dried earth from Dylan's feet. Because _he_ was the one to ask, Dylan acquiesced, though the Elven warrior could see she didn't understand why mud on her feet was a problem. He found pale gray-blue bruises marring the soft soles of her feet, and a few scratches. When he was done, they donned their rings again and finally ate.

He had to coax her to eat. Not because she wasn't hungry - at least, he didn't think that was why. More that her mind, anchorless and unable to stay in the present, forgot to keep having her feed herself. She'd become so thin...

But he would never force-feed her. Not after her experiences as a child. Instead he coaxed her through the simple meal of bread, fruit, and cheese, calling her back with soft words every time her mind wandered down some new avenue of insanity and her eyes drifted away to gaze unseeingly at the forest beyond the garden walls.

"One more bite, love," Nuada murmured near the end of the meal. Dylan jumped as if he'd stuck her with a pin. Her eyes met his. She frowned. Looked down at her plate. The raspberry custard was the last of the food on her plate. He'd managed to get her to eat the rest of it. The king knew the healers did not get this sort of result when he was not here. Keeping that fake smile plastered onto his face, he added, "Just one more bite and we'll do something else. How does that sound?"

Dylan scooped up another bite of custard. Stared at the creamy burgundy dessert. "It's red," she said softly. "It's not supposed to be red." She set the spoon down, staring at it in consternation. "It's supposed to be yellow. I don't know where the yellow is. It's supposed to be yellow but I lost the colors." Chewing her bottom lip, she glanced around. Turned confused eyes to Nuada. "Do you know where they are?"

He didn't know where he managed to dredge up the words, or the strength to say them to her. "Sweetheart, you haven't lost yellow. It's supposed to be red."

She shook her head vehemently. "No. No, it's custard. Custard is yellow. Like your eyes. I lost the yellow and I don't know how to get it back." She nibbled on the edge of her thumb and frowned at her plate. A tear spilled down her cheek. "How could I lose yellow? If I lose yellow I lose sunshine and flowers and your eyes and-"

"Dylan." It hurt to say her name. How it hurt. Hurt to see her sorrow and her bewilderment. This was his fault - her alarmed confusion, and the madness that had created it. "Dylan, yellow isn't lost. The custard we usually eat is yellow, but this time it is red. I wanted to try something new. It's raspberry, sweetheart. Raspberries are red, remember?"

A frown twisted her mouth. "Raspberry?" She looked up from her plate. For a moment, the cloudiness in her eyes faded a little. "You like lemon, though. It's your favorite. We always have lemon."

"I wanted to try something different," Nuada replied. 'I'm sorry,' he added silently. 'I'm so sorry.'

"Different?" She frowned more fiercely, brow furrowing as she struggled to understand. All at once, her expression cleared. She nodded. "Raspberry. Raspberries are red. I didn't lose yellow. Okay." She nodded again. "Okay." She picked up the spoon again. Took a bite.

'Her mind is so broken,' Nuada thought, fighting to swallow the custard. 'Such little things upset and confuse her so much.' Raspberry custard instead of lemon. Washing the mud from her hands. Marigolds crushed beneath iron-shod feet. She'd screamed herself hoarse over the dead flowers, he remembered. Screamed as if she were dying. 'My beloved,' he thought. He wanted to say the words but they sat heavy as lead on his tongue. 'Oh, my love...'

"I had a dream last night," Dylan whispered suddenly, pulling him from the poisonous sea of his remorse. Overhead, thunder rumbled. "It was horrible."

A stone seemed lodged in Nuada's throat. A dream... Every time she had an episode, every time she remembered the truth of what had happened, it was prefaced by a dream, a nightmare of killing and bloodshed and carnage. "It was only a dream, Dylan."

She shook her head. "There was fire. Screaming. Blood ran down my window like rain." She glanced from the spoon to him. Another tear fell. "The streets were rivers of blood and the dead were everywhere. Dead children. Corpses in the street." The spoon fell to the plate with a harsh clatter. Dylan hugged herself. "And there were monsters. Big golden monsters belching steam, destroying everything. Butchering innocent people."

Nuada was at her side in an instant, sliding his arms about her. His heart beat mercilessly against his breast. 'Please,' he prayed, not for the first time. 'Please, don't let her remember. Don't let her remember that day.' Aloud, all he said was, "It was a dream, Dylan. Only a bad dream."

"John was dead," Dylan whimpered. Nuada closed his eyes as grief tore through him like claws. John. Her twin, her other half. His friend. The only one he hadn't been able to save. There was another crack of thunder. Dylan didn't seem to hear it. "One of the monsters stabbed him through the chest. There was blood. Red, red. Like the raspberries. He fell. Fell down onto the ground, fell down the hill he'd been standing on. Jack and Jill," she mumbled, beginning to rock back and forth. "Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown but you caught Jill, you stopped Jill, you made Jack fall down, you-"

"Dylan," Nuada murmured as she rocked and rocked, eyes empty and vague, "Dylan. Sweetheart. It's all right. It was only a dream. Jack didn't fall down, sweetheart. It is all right. Come on, now. Do not be afraid. It was only a dream."

"No," she said, "no." She reached up and tugged at a tangled wisp of her hair. Pulled the limp curl straight. "No, it wasn't a dream. Not a dream. Real. It was real. Jack fell down and broke his crown." Thunder cracked violently. She yanked on the lock of hair. "Your crown, it's gold, red as blood and bright as gold. Jack fell down but you caught Jill, but not Jack, you killed him! Jill screaming and it's not a dream, the king killed Jack, Jack fell down and broke his crown-"

"No, Dylan," Nuada said, fear icing his veins. She rocked faster. "No, that's not what happened-"

"You killed John," she gasped the words and it was as if they were fists striking her body. Her voice rose in pitch. The anguish twisted her expression. "You killed John. You killed everyone. You... you... I remember. I remember! Everyone's dead, you killed them, you killed John, everyone's dead, there are no more humans left, you-"

"I didn't kill John," he protested. He tightened his grip on her. "Dylan, I did not kill your brother. I would never-"

Dylan shook her head, keening, struggling feebly against Nuada's hold. Though it felt as if it would kill him to do it, he let her go. She lunged to her feet and scrambled away from him, still making that awful keening wailing sound. "You killed my brother!" She cried it, sobbed it. A jagged white bolt of lightning struck one of the cypress trees. The mad vague emptiness cleared from her eyes and there was a terrible clarity left in its wake. "I thought you loved me, but you killed my brother! You killed John!"

He closed his eyes and hung his head, unable to look into her stricken face. That sin, more than any but his father's death, weighed him down like a millstone around his neck. To have lost his father, Wink, and then John to the war... "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry I could not save him. I saved the others."

"Monster!" She screamed it. The word slapped him across the face, left him hollow. A single tear carved its way down his cheek. Overhead, the sky ripped open. Rain smashed down on the white canvas of the pavilion. Dylan staggered backward into the downpour. "I hate you! I'll never forgive you!"

She turned and ran, back toward the sprawling house. He saw her slip in the fresh mud and fall. She was back on her feet in seconds, mud darkening her skirt, blood running down her legs from where she'd cut her knees on garden stones. Nuada started after her. Called to her above the sheeting roar of the rain. Dylan didn't even look back; just ran inside. The door slammed.

Nuada stopped at the door. Braced his hands on the frame and took a shuddering breath. Rested his forehead against the smooth rowan wood. He could hear her words ricocheting around in his skull. 'Monster. I hate you.' And older words. 'Bastard. Murderer. Liar. Evil.' They throbbed in his skull. 'I hate you. I'll never forgive you.'

"I am so sorry," he rasped, though she was not there to hear him. The rain had plastered his clothes to his body, his hair to his skull. It mingled with the single tear that had escaped his rigid control. "Oh, gods, I am so sorry, Dylan. I had to do it. I'm so sorry. I had to." For the fae. For his people. For the lives and livelihood of the Fair Folk. But he'd never intended John to be a casualty. Never. Because somehow John had become his friend and because...

The king opened the door and strode inside. He knew where to find Dylan.

His lady was in her bedroom. She shivered on her bed, water rolling down her face from the rain, blood rolling in fat red drops from her scraped knees down her legs to stain the ivory and gold rug beneath her feet. Her dress was already soaked through. So were the bedclothes. She'd wiped away the mud from her hands on her skirts.

Nuada stepped inside the room. Closed the door. Dylan looked up. Tears rolled down her cheeks the way the blood spilled down her legs.

The agonizing grief in her eyes flared hot with loathing and betrayal as she lunged off the bed, launched herself at him. He caught one fragile wrist, but not the other as she cracked her palm across his face. It left a golden mark on his cheek. Blood flooded his mouth. Then he let her go to allow her to pound against his chest with her fists as she sobbed, "You monster, you monster! I hate you!" Her voice was too weak to scream but it felt as if her words crashed against his ears. "You killed my brother! You killed him!"

Dylan collapsed against his chest, exhausted. Nuada ached to hold her, to comfort her, but he knew she wouldn't allow it. Not yet. Instead, he murmured, "I would bring him back if I could. He was my friend, Dylan. I loved him, too."

She wrenched away from him. Stumbled to the bed. When her knees buckled, she sank down onto the mattress. Her eyes found his face. "Tell me it isn't true," she begged. The light of true lucidity was in her eyes now. So was a crushing grief. "Tell me it's not true, Nuada. Tell me it didn't happen."

He drew a breath that hurt. "It happened. It's true." The words were jagged stones that left his tongue bruised and bleeding. "You and your family are the last humans alive that I know of. I killed the rest, or ordered them to be killed. I am a monster, as you and my father named me." He watched the silent tears come faster, listened to the first muffled sob. "And it is true - John is dead," he said tonelessly. "By my order."

The last bit of her composure crumbled away and she dropped her face into her hands and sobbed as if she would rip apart. Nuada could bear no more. He went to the bed. Sat beside her. When he slid his arms around her again, she twisted and struggled for a moment before collapsing against him. Her tears soaked his shirt. He stroked her hair and fought against weeping as she wept. He had no right to weep. This truth had driven her mad - that by her husband's order, her brother had been killed. An accident, but it had happened. And now... now...

Dylan lifted her head to look up at him with shattered tearful eyes. Every tear was a drop of Nuada's heartblood. He could feel himself slowly bleeding to death. There was a plea in those eyes - a plea to make it all unreal, to undo it, to turn back the clock and bring her brother and the rest of her race back from oblivion.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. How often had they had this conversation? Too many times. She never remembered. It never stopped hurting. "I am sorry, Dylan."

She stared at him. He knew what she would do next. What she always did next. She might hate him, might even fear him a little now... but he was still the man she loved, still the person who represented comfort and safety to her. Even the war hadn't been enough to shatter that part of what he was to her. So he wasn't surprised when she kissed him, a kiss that begged him for some kind of comfort, fleeting though it might have been. He tasted salt on his tongue. It burned his mouth. He let it. It was not even close to what he deserved.

His lady was crying as he shifted to lean her back against the sheets of her bed. She wept silently even as she pressed close and kissed him with savage desperation, needing something, anything but reality, to hold onto. Her tears trailed from the corners of her eyes to wet her temples, soak her hair and the damp pillows, while her shaking hands went to the wet knot of Nuada's sash and the hand Nuada wasn't using to hold himself above her went to the laces of her bodice.

It was the same as it always was when she remembered - a frantic, desperate thing, though it wasn't quick. His submission to her silent plea to give her something to drown her memories in. His mouth on hers, kisses that tasted of grief and salt tears and remorse. His hands on her body, rousing a fire she could never resist, even now. Dylan's own hands in Nuada's damp hair, twisted in his half-open shirt, her ragged nails scraping down his back. Tiny beads of golden blood welled up.

He welcomed that pain, and the pain of her tears stinging his skin as his lips whispered across Dylan's scarred cheeks and mouth. He welcomed the sting of the blood on her legs smearing against his skin. Did she welcome the soft blue bruises that would shadow her thighs tomorrow? The marks of pale rose, tender to the touch, that his mouth left on her skin? Was this punishment as well as comfort, for her and for him? How long would she remember this before madness smothered the memories?

In the aftermath of passion, in the heartbroken silence after Dylan cried out his name and he whispered hers, as their eyes met, he saw forgiveness and pain and heartache and fear and love in those beautiful eyes. Nuada saw her love for him, saw that it remained unbroken despite how he'd broken her. Unable to meet her eyes any longer, he drew back from her enough to help her completely out of her wet clothes before she caught a chill. Then he led her to the soft fur rug before the fireplace in an attempt to warm her.

He drew the small knitted blanket from her chair beside her window and draped it around her bare shoulders. She huddled beneath it, shivering anew. Nuada realized he was shivering, too. His clothes half-hung from his frame, and they were soaked by the rain. It was Dylan, her eyes vivid with memory and sorrow, who helped him out of his wet clothes and silently offered him a place under the black knitted blanket beside her. She laid her head on his shoulder, and a piercing ache shot through him, red-hot and thin as a burning wire. He made a small sound.

"I never wanted to hurt you," Nuada whispered. His cheek rested on her slowly-drying hair. It was the first time he'd spoken anything but Dylan's name since before their joining. "I never wanted that."

"I've lost my mind, haven't I?" She asked him softly. "That's why I'm here."

"Yes," he said. "That's why I made this place for you. So you would be safe and as comfortable as I could make you. A piece of paradise, to attempt to atone for all my many sins."

She didn't speak for a long time. Finally, she asked, "Have I ever remembered before?"

"You always remember when I visit you. Always."

"But you keep coming."

He looked down at her. "I love you." It hurt to say the words. They were bitter as poison and sharp as an iron razor. Nuada thought he could feel his heart bleeding anew. "I need you. I miss you... so very much."

Dylan gazed up at him, and her expression softened a little more. She touched his cheek, the harsh gold mark she'd left with her slap. "I won't remember any of this, will I?"

Nuada shook his head. She always asked him that. She had never remembered for more than a few hours.

"You must believe me," he whispered. "I never meant to hurt John. I intended to save him and the rest of your family. Everyone else is safe. I got them out and away before the attacks. I did not make it to John in time. I'm sorry. I am so very sorry, Dylan-" She touched her fingers to his lips. He fell silent.

"I forgive you," she whispered. The words lanced him. Sometimes she forgave. Sometimes she didn't. It was the one thing about the conversation that changed. He could never know which she would choose, so he could never know if she'd truly forgiven him or not. Still, the words were a soothing balm against his raw spirit when she whispered again, "I forgive you, Nuada."

"How could you possibly?"

She cradled his face, turning more fully toward him. "Because no matter what you've done, no matter what the cost, I love you. I will always love you."

He gazed down at her, stricken. She had _never_ said that before while still lucid. Never whispered her love for him in such a sweet murmur while her eyes drank him in as if she would never seem him again. And she _was_ still lucid. He could see it in her eyes.

Overcome, he brought his mouth down on hers. Tasted her grief in the kiss. Then he laid her down upon the silky fur rug and made love to her twice more - once, gently, trembling more than a little, drowning in her, his face pressed against the warmth of her neck while tendrils of her damp hair clung to his cheek; and again, fiercely, while she clutched at the broad strength of his shoulders and pressed her face into the hollow where his pulse beat at his throat, and he was left gasping and grasping for her as they continued to drown in the torrent of grief and need and love and regret.

And when it was over, he laid his head upon her breast, and as she ran her fingers through his hair he wept like a heartsick child for the corruption of humanity, the loss of a friend he'd loved as a brother, and for both the pain that would never leave Dylan's eyes and the broken mind that would never truly heal.

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_**Author's Note:**__ yeah... kinda depressing. You wanna know what's even more depressing? I just had a tooth pulled like... 3 days ago, and my mouth still hurts like a wicked b****. So have mercy/pity on me and review? I love reviews! They are love and a soothing balm to me_. =)

_Huggles,_

_LA Knight_


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